Cue the Waterworks

by Eric Peterson

There’s a great scene in Blake Edwards’ Victor/Victoria between Robert Preston and Julie Andrews. She’s at the end of her rope, both financially and emotionally, and is sobbing uncontrollably in his arms. “There have been times I’d have given my soul to cry like that,” he says. She whimpers back, “I hate it.” He smiles, pats her back, and replies, “You wouldn’t if you couldn’t do it anymore.”

There’s something about crying that presents a puzzle to anyone who studies popular culture, even as a hobby, and it is this: We tend to avoid crying in life, or at least those situations that would call forth tears. And yet, some people don’t mind, even seek out, movies or television shows that cause them to weep in response to fictional characters and situations.

In a completely unscientific bit of research earlier this week, I asked my community of Facebook friends to weigh in on the movies that never failed to make them cry, and I learned a few things – about my friends, mostly … but also about me, and why we go to the movies, period.

Several of my friends named movies they had initially seen as children. Bambi was, of course, mentioned, as well as It’s a Wonderful Life and Old Yeller, which my friend Fay goes so far as to label “abusive.” An example mentioned several times by several friends was Disney’s classic Dumbo. In particular, the moment where Dumbo’s mother, caged and branded a “mad elephant” because she wouldn’t tolerate cruelty toward her beloved child, reaching her trunk through the bars of her cage, and cradling little Dumbo in her trunk to the strains of “Baby Mine” was a significant source of trauma for many of my friends. As my friend Ellen noted, “She every mother trying to protect her son from all the hurt in the world and it can't be done.”

In fact, lots of people mentioned mothers. Like Stacey, Terms of Endearment was an immediate pick for my friend Franc, for a very particular reason. “I watched it … with my mother. My sister died from cancer and viewing this movie with Mom, still so lost in her grief at the time, just gutted me. Anytime I have ever watched it since, I can't separate that memory and sense of loss from the film.”

Any kind of mother seemed to elicit tears, even the gorilla mother of a human child. My friend Dennis noted that “when [Tarzan’s] mother sings, ‘You’ll Be In My Heart’ … my daughter just gets the tissues out for me.”

And of course, there’s Steel Magnolias. I told my own story in this week’s episode, but my friend Kathy sees that final scene in the cemetery from a slightly different perspective than I. “No parent can watch that scene without tears,” she says, “seeing Sally Fields try to grapple with her daughter's death.”

My friend Kyle had a pick I wasn’t expecting. “As a kid, it was a VHS we had of Danielle Steele's Fine Things. It made me cry every time, mostly because it always made me think of what it would be like if I were to lose my mom.”

And the dads got to join the party, too. My friend Brent (who just happens to write the best dad-blog ever) mentioned Finding Nemo, particularly the scene “at the end, where Marlin realizes he has to let Nemo grow up and experience life on his own. As a dad, I'm so not ready for that [talk].” And my friend Steve had a similar reaction at the end of Field of Dreams. “The last scene when his father says, ‘want to have a catch?’ … I start peeling onions.” My friend Leticia picked The Little Princess. “especially when she sees her father after being told that he's dead and he doesn't remember her! And then when they are finally reunited!” (She was clearly crying as she typed this.)

Familial bonds aside, stories about friendship were mentioned a lot. Beaches was a popular pick, as was Babette’s Feast. There were also some surprises in this category. My friend Erick remembers a scene from the end of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (and no, he wasn’t crying from sheer exhaustion, as I was). He notes, “when Sam says to Frodo on Mt. Doom, ‘I may not be able to carry the ring for you, but I can carry you,’ and hefts him up and climbs. What a heroic gesture, what an amazing friend, what an amazing bond between them.”

And then there’s my friend Jeb, who teared up at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, of all things. “Remember when the ship was crashing and Groot decided to weave his tree-like body around the group as a last-ditch biological protection? Rocket starts crying and asking Groot, his ONLY friend, ‘Why are you doing this? You'll die!’ Groot gazes into his eyes and simply says... ‘We are Groot.’ … That physical embrace and emotional union is something I cherish whenever I can find it with friends in my life, probably because I grew up in a culture that taught men not to be affectionate and not to say what is really in their hearts.”

It might not surprise regular listeners to learn that there are a lot of gay men in my Facebook feed, and some of the choices reflected that as well. Latter Days, a film I’ve actually not seen, was mentioned by several friends. Jon wrote, “I really related to it and felt really lucky that I was never tortured at one of those conversion places. Never fails to get me when they are putting him in the ice bath and dunking his head under.” As pleasant as that sounds, I think I do need to see this film, given the sheer number of mentions it received.

Other LGBT films mentioned were Brokeback Mountain, Boys Don’t Cry, Freeheld, Longtime Companion, Philadelphia, and several votes for It’s My Party. “[I cry] for so many different reasons,” wrote my friend Eric. “The "what ifs: What if they hadn't broken up? What if they'd gotten back together sooner? The love story is so heartbreaking.”

Finally, there were some political choices. “When Yvonne starts singing the Marseillaise [in Casablanca] and the tears run down her face, I'm right there with her,” wrote my friend Katherine.

And my friend Dan remembered the scene in Schindler’s List, “where Schindler looks at his Nazi pin and says ‘How many more could this have gotten?’” At the movies as in life, the political is often personal, too.

I admit that I had a similar experience recently, watching the national tour of The Sound of Music at Washington DC’s Kennedy Center. When the Captain got choked up halfway through “Edelweiss,” he was singing at the Kaltzberg Music Festival in front of four enormous swastikas, I could feel hot tears streaming down my face. And I wondered if I had seen this same show last year, if I would have cried. (Probably, but I did wonder.)

Other tear-inducing films that weren’t mentioned above include Avalon, A Beautiful Mind, Beauty & the Beast (2017), Big, Brian’s Song, Broadway Danny Rose, A Christmas Carol (1951), The Champ, Cinema Paradiso, Cooley High, The Deer Hunter, A Dog’s Purpose, Empire of the Sun, The English Patient, Ever After: A Cinderella Story, The Fault in Our Stars, Forrest Gump, Fried Green Tomatoes, Fur, Ghost, Greyfriars Bobby: The True Story of a Dog, Harold & Maude, Heartburn, The Hollars, How to Train Your Dragon, The Ice Storm, Imitation of Life (1959), Inside Out, Lawrence of Arabia, Life is Beautiful, Little Women (1933), Love Actually, Love Story, Madame X, Me Before You, Moana, Mulan, The Notebook, Pretty Woman, Pride & Prejudice, Rudy, A Star is Born (1954), Stepmom, Toy Story 3, The Trip to Bountiful, W;t, and The Wizard of Oz. That’s a lot of Kleenex, right there.

Sometimes we cry about things that are sad. A parent or a child (or worse yet, a dog) dies, lovers are parted, people are lonely. Sometimes we cry because the joy we feel witnessing a long overdue reunion or the birth of a child is so overwhelming that we start to leak. Sometimes we cry because people – or hobbits – are wonderful and capable of so much good that it makes our hearts swell.

But in every case, I believe, we’re not really crying at hobbits, or clownfish, or a broke Buildings & Loans manager at Christmastime, or a girl from Kansas lost on the Yellow Brick Road. We’re crying because we see something of ourselves up there. It’s probably not a coincidence that everyone in my Facebook thread who mentioned Latter Days was at one point in their lives a young gay man afraid to come out, or that everyone who mentioned Beaches was a woman who could tell me a story about her very best friend that she’s known for years. Crying at the movies is basically the same thing as looking at yourself square in the mirror and telling yourself that it’s going to be okay … or that it’s already better than okay … or maybe just that you’re not alone in the world. (Or that if the Von Trapps could smuggle seven kids over the Swiss Alps, we’ll survive Donald Trump.)

I believe that we throw ourselves up there on the silver screen whether we’re watching an action movie, a silly comedy, or a maudlin tearjerker. That’s why we’re willing to give two hours of our lives to people and situations that don’t even exist. When a movie is just okay, it lets us get away from ourselves for a little while, but when a movie is fantastic – or just the right movie at the right time – it allows us to find ourselves. 

Paternal Instinct

by Stacey Fearheiley

Parenting isn't easy.  Being a mom is hard. Being a dad....is just confusing.  In many ways, Dads get the fuzzy end of the lollipop.  

Mother's Day came first.  "Mommy" or "Mama" is often the first word from baby.  And when there's a boo boo, it's Mommy one runs to for assistance. 

Even in the movies, as in Steven Spielberg's Hook, Peter Pan's daughter tells Captain Hook that he needs " a mother very very badly."  

In this week's podcast Eric and I talk about our favorite movie and tv dads.  Peter Pan didn't make the list.  Peter Pan, in that movie, was not a very good dad.  Even in some of the films or tv shows where the dads made the cut, Father of the Bride  and the Dick Van Dyke Show for example, the dads provide for the family monetarily, but for the heavy emotional lifting of the family or the "getting stuff done with the kids" portion....that was Mom.  And while I will admit again that I equated Dick Van Dyke with my own Dad often, the emotionally distant, workaholic, remote father figure was NOT my experience.

Fun story:  Steve Martin's Father of the Bride and Hook came out the same year, 1991.  My dad, Don, and I went to see both of them that summer together.  At the end of both movies our cheeks were moist from tears.  During FotB, I was sobbing.  After seeing the second of the two, Don and I were talking and analyzing the films, as we were wont to do.  I asked him which movie made him cry more.

I'll be honest.  I knew the answer to the question.  FotB was all about the oldest daughter and her dad coping with her growing up, moving away and making her own life.  I knew this was a trigger for Don, and waited smugly for him to answer.  Interestingly, he needed to think about it.  For a few minutes.  "Hook."  he said.  I was gobsmacked! WTF?  Did he not picture me haring off to marry someone who might take his place in my life?  Where was the love?  (I've always been a tad dramatic.)

He smiled sadly and explained why he cried more for the Pan.

"I see me in Peter." he said. "When he shows up to the baseball field after the game is over because he's been stuck in a meeting, I saw me.  I felt like I had missed so much of your childhood experiences.  It made me regret."

My indignation melted away.  And then rushed right back...more righteous than ever.  I remember looking at him incredulously, shaking my head and admonishing him for ever thinking he missed anything of any importance.  In my memory, every play I was in, every recital I performed in, every volleyball game I played in, my dad was there.  Any time I looked out into the audience I saw Don. I couldn't think of a thing he wasn't there for.  But my perception and his were very different.  I like to think I convinced him to agree with mine.

And therein lies the rub.  The movies and tv shows put these concepts of the perfect dad out there. From Father knows Best to black-ish to Despicable Me's Felonius Gru to Mrs Doubtfire and even Logan.  In the end we see what we want to see, what makes sense to us, individually, based on our own experiences.

So, on this Father's Day, I know that I was very lucky to have Don as a dad.  He wasn't perfect, but being a father isn't easy.  You have a lot of pressure to live up to ideals created in history, in media and our expectations.  Upside....you're not alone, fathers of the world.  You should commiserate with each other. Grab a beer, pull up a chair and watch FoodTV (you know you want to).  And while you may not get the kudos that moms do...or the respect that moms do, in the present, we kids....in the end...remember the role you played, and love you for it.

Happy Father's Day!